Tuition

I disagree with Timothy Law Snyder's approval of the use of student tuition to fund campus research ("A reminder of what tuition buys," July 26). Undergraduates can spend large amounts of money and incur staggering debt to attend colleges and universities. Their main goal is to get an education and to help prepare them for careers, not to fund research by faculty that they have never even heard of or seen in a classroom. Also, promotion and achieving tenure at most colleges and universities is directly related to research and publishing activities and has nothing to do with teaching ability.

The University System of Maryland could expand its tuition remission program for the dependent children and spouses of employees. Under the current program, spouses and dependent children can attend the employee's college without paying any tuition. The spouse or dependent child can also get a 50 percent discount on college tuition at another college in the state system if the student is in an academic program not offered at the employee's institution. The proposed revision to the policy would eliminate the unique academic program requirement and allow the student to get 50 percent tuition remission at any university system college where they have been accepted.

Your call for giving in-state tuition privileges to children of undocumented immigrants ( "College bound, but undocumented," Jan. 24) repeatedly claimed that this issue isn't really about immigration. You omit the enablement dilemma that always accompanies every attempt at charitable intervention. How do we ameliorate the consequences of bad choices without encouraging continuation of those same bad choices? How does your approach avoid enabling more violation of immigration law that most of our grandparents or great-grandparents had to go through?

News from the future: •President Elizabeth Warren welcomed the 10 millionth underage child to illegally immigrate to the U.S. and immediately offered each of them and their children free tuition at the university of their choosing. The president explained that such tuition "assistance" represented reparations for America's racist, imperialist past. Interestingly, the Warren administration exempted the children from Obamacare coverage, explaining that new arrivals had a right to higher quality health care than where they came from.

Kudos to The Sun for two page one stories that clearly illustrate the hypocrisy of the Democrat-controlled legislature. In the same session that the legislature rewarded illegal immigrants with in-state tuition breaks, it penalized hardworking, high-achieving Maryland citizens by revoking their Distinguished Scholars awards. The net result of these actions will be to attract illegal immigrants to Maryland with services (educational, medical, etc.) paid for by taxpayers, and discourage the best students from remaining here during their college years and beyond.

Shame on CASA de Maryland, the group shamelessly advocating for illegal immigrants, and the ever-flaky ACLU. They are trying to sift through signatures on the petition against in-state tuition for illegal immigrants in order to throw out as many signatures as possible. Really? Obviously, CASA has no respect for the rule of law and the rights of law-abiding citizens. But the ACLU pretends to be about individual rights even if the individuals are not legal and breaking multiple laws.

For higher education in Maryland, what could be better than Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s proposed 12.5 percent budget increase for the next fiscal year? It would enable state colleges to make up for all his damaging budget cuts the last few years and to impose just a 4.5 percent tuition increase at College Park and most University System of Maryland campuses, a return to sanity after cumulative tuition increases since 2002 that have run as much as 50 percent. But it's an election year.

I read with dismay your front page stories "O'Malley signs tuition break" and "Seniors stunned by Md. scholarship cuts" (May 11). Of the scholarship cuts, Gov. Martin O'Malley's spokesperson was quoted as stating that "when we're dealing with the kind of recession we've been dealing with, every program can't be protected. " Yet the governor decided to support a tuition break for illegal immigrants? What kind of message does that send to the 350 law-abiding high school seniors who earned the merit scholarships?

I strongly disagree with your June 12 editorial, "County Council picks wrong fight. " That I and many others in Baltimore County support the County Council's opposition to giving tuition breaks to illegal immigrants is shown by the petition that is gaining approval across Maryland. The elected officials who go against what the people want on this issue are the ones picking the "wrong fight" — not the County Council. Jim Quinn

At what point should not complying with our immigration laws have consequences ( "College bound, but undocumented," Jan. 24)? Assuming that the state university system has a quota for in-state applicants in order to meet budgetary expectations, granting in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants puts the children of legal residents of Maryland at a disadvantage. Children of illegal immigrants are not being denied a college education by if the state does not grant them in-state tuition.

Given that federal workers earn more money and have better benefits than private sector employees, and that the University of Maryland University College gets state and federal tax dollars, shouldn't the school offer discount tuition to all taxpayers ( "UMUC offers discount tuition to federal workers ," July 6)? Like most taxpayers, I have grown tired of organizations that receive my tax dollars to support their picking of winners and losers. J. Heming, Baltimore - To respond to this letter, send an email to talkback@baltimoresun.com . Please include your name and contact information.

Back in April, it seemed like a win-win deal. The federal government, with a workforce that has grown increasingly dissatisfied with training opportunities, negotiated a first-of-its-kind program: A Maryland college that caters to non-traditional students online would grant a big tuition discount for all 2.2 million federal workers — 25 percent off all undergraduate courses and most graduate courses — plus their spouses and legal dependents....

As I look back over my 12 years as chancellor of the University System of Maryland (USM), one of the developments in which I take the most pride has been the USM's genuine partnership with state leaders in Annapolis. Now that the primary is over and the election looms, I encourage candidates for office across Maryland, especially those running for governor, to commit themselves to upholding this partnership. It has served our students, the state and the citizens exceptionally well.

Citing a report that Marylanders are carrying the highest level of student debt in the country, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Heather R. Mizeur will propose a plan Monday to make college more affordable and increase need-based financial aid. Mizeur, who is running for governor against Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown and Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler in the June 24 Democratic primary, is calling for a $12 million increase in aid based on...

Harford Community College officials may have come to a reasonable usage fee accommodation with the recreation leagues that play on the baseball and softball diamonds that serve as the Route 22 front yard of the college, but underlying problems exposed by the ham-handed proposal to increase the fees do not appear to have been addressed. On the subject of the fees, the college initially announced the per game cost to play on the crown jewel of the complex, an artificial turf diamond, was going from $100 to $600, and the charge for the other well-groomed fields from $100 to $200.

As we at The Johns Hopkins Hospital enter day three of a labor strike, we want to assure our community that we are continuing to provide uninterrupted services to our patients, and we want to restate our priorities of caring about our patients, our community and our employees. We highly value our employees represented by labor union 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. Each one is part of our team and vital to the world-class care we provide. We want to thank the employees who have come to work, and we want to assure our union-represented colleagues who have been out that we will welcome them back.

I feel sorry for students at the University of Maryland School of Law. Dean Karen Rothenberg oversaw the largest tuition increase in the school's history. Now, thanks to the legislative audit reported in The Sun, the students learned that $410,000 of that increase was used for "questionable payments" to Dean Rothenberg (" Ex-dean of UMB law is audit target," Feb. 20). That's roughly $500 from each of the school's 830 students, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet. I hope the new dean will be more considerate in how she spends students' money.

Tuition at St. Mary's College of Maryland will be slashed by more than 8 percent in the coming academic year after the Maryland General Assembly approved a special grant in the state's final budget. The southern Maryland liberal arts college has the highest tuition of any public university in the state, and has recently struggled with declining enrollment. The $1.5 million grant approved by state lawmakers will only be used for reducing tuition for in-state undergraduates. The tuition and fees for in-state undergraduates this year was $14,864 – university officials now say that figure will drop by about $1,000 starting in the fall.

The total per credit cost for in-county students at Harford Community College was increased last week to $124.80, which translates to $374.40 for a single three-credit class. It's hardly a king's ransom. College officials are also quick to point out that it is a bargain relative to the cost of attending even a Maryland college system facility as an in-state student. Still, as has been noted before, the latest round of increases (to fees rather than tuition, a distinction that's meaningful only to hair-splitters)